The Influence Of Love
by TheCountessAndTheEnglishLord
Summary: 1924. Cora hides away in grief, and Robert discovers her; reconciling their broken relationship.


_Okay, I have decided: to avoid offending people or taking characters too much out of their personality, I am going to publish one-shots about characters upstairs' attitudes to one another as separate stories. I hope you like this._

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He knew that things had not been right between them for some time, but when he enquired as to where his wife was that morning, neither Carson or his daughters could tell him. Far from wanting separation, he was desperate to make amends, casting aside the difficult weeks that had preceded the confident conclusion he had reached this morning. Nothing made him sadder than the sight of his wife attempting to reconcile their broken apart connection. He could still hear her attempting to make conversation, her voice a little strained to stop the conflicting tears that were threatening to spill forward and ruin her perfect façade of a hostess. He stepped out of the library, glancing around. The house was quiet, a lulling slumber cast across the shadowy spectre of the Abbey. It was the winter taking hold of the building, wrapping her cold, brittle hands around weak, pale necks. A monster lying waiting as soon as walking out the front door. He made his way up the stairs, going two at a time. Reaching the top balcony, he looked over at the arms depicted nobly on the opposite balcony side. A reminder of his nobility and sacrifice for this crumbling, heavy place. As he thought of this, he recalled a conversation he once had with Matthew...it seemed like a life away, a time when everything was easier and less intimidating. A time when time itself was not hurried. Now he felt a shaking of Downton Abbey's very foundations, a trembling in his footstep when he was reminded of his important station. Turning he looked down the very corridor a traitor had crept along not a week ago, on to mislead him from his fragile marital situation. He sighed and walked down, opening her bedroom door. No Cora. He turned and stepped back into the hall, looking left then right. Then he heard a sound that could melt the hardest of hearts. The muffled sobs of his wife. A sound that echoed unforgivably in his mind as he hurried after it. It came to a quiet crescendo outside his late daughter's bedroom, and he closed his eyes in sorrow.

"Cora?" He pushed open the ajar door and came face to face with the form of his wife, curled up on Sybil's side of the bed, crying fit to burst. "Oh Cora."

"Go away Robert. I have nothing to say to you."

He sat gently beside her and placed a hand in her shaking shoulder. The crying stopped but no hand came up to throw his touch aside. She slowly sat up and met his eye. Tears spilled down her pale, smooth cheeks and the top button of her dress was open as a result of hysteria. "Cora."

"Oh God Robert!" She collapsed onto his shoulder, soaking through his jacket; a minor factor that mattered for naught. "When did it come to this? When did it come to this? How did we get here? How did we manage to fall so far that all chance of amending our love was too far to envisage? How?" He pulled her close, stroking her hair.

"I love you Cora." She sobbed harder at this but he pressed on. "I have loved you for so long I could never imagine the day that our relationship would be tested. I wish that I could erase all that has happened but I cannot. I wish to God I had asked your opinion, and that I had acknowledged you, but I cannot change the past. I can only now influence the future."

"Whatever do you mean, Robert?"

"I want to hear your every thought on every important matter. I want to include you with conversations on the estate. I want to acknowledge your opinion because I have ignored the truth that yours is the one that matters to me the most. I love you and I want you to be happy. I want your presence at my side when I go to meetings and exhibitions. I want you to hold my hand when I have my teeth pulled in old age." She chuckled at this and squeezed his hand. "I want you."

"Oh Robert I want you more than anything too. Oh I have not accepted that you love me even though I know it is a constant, I have been too wrapped up in all my confusion to notice that you have been hurting and to know I am the cause of that grief...that has never been my wish. I love you. I want you. Let's make our future perfect."

Their lips crashed together, a delectable collision, a binding motion that entwined their hearts even tighter. And the bonds of their love were strengthened by their knowledge of the easily influenced future.


End file.
